A Louisville city commission voted Tuesday to preserve homes on Lawton Court that faced demolition by a manufacturing company seeking to expand.
But despite the 6-4 vote, CEPEDA Associates Inc. will be allowed to move forward with tearing down the mostly shotgun properties, located in Louisville’s Merriwether neighborhood.
That’s because two members of the Historic Landmarks and Preservation District Commission did not appear at the meeting, while a third recused themselves from voting on the street’s fate.
Local law says the 13-member commission must have a majority vote to designate a landmark or district. The six votes in favor of designating Lawton Court as a historic landmark came one vote shy of that threshold.
The outcome initially confused even some of the commission’s members and led to clarification from the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office near the conclusion of a meeting that lasted over four hours, with 16 people speaking in favor of preserving Lawton Court and one speaking against.
Background:Lawton Court could disappear as a company expands. But some are fighting for it to stay
Residents who submitted a petition to protect Lawton Court — saying it’s a valued area for pedestrians and families, with homes dating back to 1909 — have 30 days to appeal the vote to Jefferson Circuit Court.
But Lawton Court defender Jody Dahmer said the surrounding neighborhood associations are now focused on working with CEPEDA and Metro Council to make the area pedestrian-friendly and potentially change zoning regulations to avoid similar cases in the future.
For instance, Dahmer expressed a desire to revise Landmarks Commission rules regarding majority votes when not all members are present.
“Moving forward, the neighborhood associations want to work with Metro Council to eliminate EZ-1 industrial zoning from residential neighborhoods in Louisville,” Dahmer said by email after the meeting.
“All in all,” Dahmer added, the effort to preserve Lawton Court “created a much stronger community,” despite what happens next.
CEPEDA, a local engineering and manufacturing firm that specializes in providing equipment and products for the U.S. Navy, moved to Burnett Avenue in 2019, where its facility backs up to Lawton Court.
The company has since purchased several homes on the residential court as part of an expansion of its facility. While a handful of residents jumped at the opportunity to sell their homes to the company, not all wanted to see Lawton Court torn down.
Connie Morris and her husband, Wayne, who raised their children in a Lawton Court home and lived there for 56 years, welcomed the chance to sell their house to CEPEDA, describing the property as declining over time into “dilapidation.”
The Morris family and others said activists attempting to prevent the demolition of Lawton Court had never contacted them to learn why they were voluntarily willing to sell their homes.
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CEPEDA currently owns about a dozen properties on the street: two that are vacant with no structures, nine with homes the company is seeking to demolish and two that are rented to tenants.
“We will be working to acquire the remaining properties in whatever timeline is suitable to the owners of the properties,” CEPEDA vice president Eric Taylor told The Courier Journal in an email. “We have been talking with them since shortly after we moved in and have been upfront about our hopes of expansion. They are aware of our position and will reach out to us when it’s a good time for them.”
CEPEDA plans to build a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility that will add 80 to 150 jobs at the company, with the expansion anticipated within five years.
“We are not in a position to break ground immediately, but we’ll be planning our expansion based on the demand of our customers as we understand what services are most valuable for us to provide,” Taylor said.
Reach Billy Kobin at bkobin@courierjournal.com
Contact reporter Olivia Evans at oevans@courier-journal.com or on Twitter at @oliviamevans_
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